Anything for Each Other
by lisehrin
Summary: This is not a love story between star crossed soul mates. This is life.


It gets easier with time. Watching Booth be in love, in a relationship. Seeing his eyes twinkle and darken for someone else. Hearing him profess his love for her over and over. She suppresses the inner cynic who thinks he's making it till he fakes it. She stops herself, mentally revises her statement. Fake it till you make it. Yes. She is becoming better at this. Soon, she hopes, her friends will stop being so surprised by her apparent mastery of the colloquial. They don't understand how hard she has to work and focus for a simple statement. She wishes they'd stop spoiling her successes.

Anyway, it gets easier. The searing pain she feels when Booth utters the words 'not a consolation prize' becomes simply an ache at the mention of engagement rings. Becomes a phantom pain by the time the question is finally asked and answered. She's mastered the art of smiling and bearing it. Soon, she will be able to go to the Founding Fathers or the diner alone and not feel so alone. Soon. Soon, she will take up Angela on her offer to fix her up with a blind date. Soon, she will buy Booth and Hannah a wedding gift and actually hope that it helps them build their life together. Soon.

At the moment, she is getting through. Not closing up, walling herself in, manning the ramparts. At least not entirely. She slips up sometimes, wants to run away, but she acknowledges her sadness and faces her regrets head on. If anyone would ever ask, she'd freely admit that what she feels is love. No one asks though and so it stays a secret. A warm blanket she holds to herself when the coldness settles in. She isn't convinced that love is worthwhile, it's apparent transience discouraging. But she does think that she'd like to feel as happy as Booth is with someone else.

When she finally relents to dating, she doesn't fall into bed immediately. She spends time getting to know him and letting him get to know her. He is a good man this time, this relationship. He is a friend of Hodgin's, vetted by Booth. He makes her comfortable. He makes her core flip when he enters her presence. She does not delude anyone that this is love. She assures them she is attempting a relationship, and letting it develop. She grows tired of everyone's assumptions that she has given up or is biding her time for Booth. Secretly, she doubts Booth's relationship will last, but nonetheless, she isn't rooting for its failure. She is moving on. Slowly and cautiously. Perhaps she will learn to love this man, perhaps she won't, but for now she is trying.

They still work well together, but things have changed. The small things at least. The big things, well, they'd still die for each other and that pretty much says it all. Her friends, coworkers worry about them more than she ever does. They make bets on when he'll get dumped, when she'll fall into his arms like in some torrid romance novel, or when they'll finally stop denying themselves true love. They? They don't wonder at all.

Eventually Booth does break up with Hannah. Eventually, Brennan decides it won't work with Steve. Everyone around them holds their breath in anticipation of the explosion that will occur between them. Still it doesn't.

One day she meets a man who does more than make her insides flip. One day he does get married. But not to each other. And it's more than okay. They are happy and they don't need to telegraph it to the world or each other. They will always be partners. Will always be there for each other in friendship. They will do anything for each other – except fall in love.

...

_I wrote this little story before the Doctor in the Photo aired. With a few minor modifications it still works (for me at least, you will have to decide for yourself). This isn't necessarily how I see things going, but what a small part of me has begun to hope for as the season has progressed. I'm tired of seeing these characters keep dancing around each other and never getting anywhere. And the last line? If anyone has every seen the Global TV ad for the show where Bones repeats the line "there isn't anything I wouldn't do for him" - this is my response every time I hear those words..._


End file.
